A Late-Night Chase, One Fatality, Whom to Blame?

July 2003 By PATRICK BEDARD

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When Officer Gerry Allen of the Mesa, Arizona, police first spotted the white 1988 Chevy Nova, it had jumped a curb and slid across the sidewalk at the intersection of Country Club and University. "The entire left side . . . was smashed in," he wrote in a report. "The driver was still in the vehicle." The time was 1:24 on a warm September morning.

Officer Allen approached from the passenger side and saw the driver was bleeding from the head. The door would not open. He went to the other side and yelled. The driver did not respond. "I could hear a gurgling sound coming from him," Allen reported, "and saw his head flopping up and down." Together with Sergeant Sean Kelly, also of the Mesa PD, they helped the driver into an upright position and attempted to hold his head in a stationary position, this to prevent spinal cord damage. Sergeant Kelly used a Gerber utility tool to cut the seatbelt. They continued to support the driver's head until the paramedics arrived.

According to the police report, "The inside of this vehicle showed the driver's door had been pushed over the majority of the driver's seat. The driver's seat was also pushed toward the passenger seat. There was a pooling of blood on the . . . front passenger seat."

The driver, 25-year-old Evan Edward Shelley of Mesa, was evacuated by helicopter to a hospital. He was listed in "extremely critical" condition with a broken pelvis, broken ribs, a ruptured spleen, and other internal injuries. He lost consciousness at about 3 a.m. and died five hours later.

The deceased's father, James Shelley, 59, also of Mesa, said his son was a computer engineering student at Arizona State University. After finishing his studies, he had gone out for a late-night meal. The crash occurred on his return.

Just minutes before the crash, Officer Christopher Valdez, 31, of the Arizona Department of Public Safety (highway patrol), had pulled over a green 1998 Chevy Lumina for speeding just a few miles north of the Mesa city limit. When he approached, the Lumina sped away. The car was stolen, Valdez learned. He pursued. At 1:19 a.m., Mesa PD was advised of the approaching chase. It immediately put out a call for assistance.

When the pursued and the pursuer entered Mesa southbound on Country Club, Valdez was told by a superior officer to drop the chase because he was in the city. He ended his "emergency" and switched off his flashing lights. Instead of chasing the Lumina, he said he would simply follow it.

Mesa is as flat as spilled milk. It has straight roads laid out on a grid. You can see for miles. Traffic is nearly absent at that time of morning. Eight Mesa cruisers within a few miles of the pursuit responded to the call. One of them, driven by Officer Donald Kipilii, was approaching Country Club from a side street just as the green Lumina came speeding past at 60 or so mph, he estimated. The limit is 40. He turned to follow, with a gap of "400 to 600 feet." He was closest of a gathering throng of cruisers, yet he was too far behind, in his judgment, to turn on his emergency lights and try for a stop. He couldn't see how many occupants were inside. Tinted windows obscured his view.

The stolen Lumina got through the intersection at University on the green, but the light changed as Kipilii approached. He wouldn't make it. He began slowing. A taxi was almost stopped there already in the right lane. He saw headlights approaching from behind and the silhouette of a light bar. It was not illuminated. He assumed it was another cruiser. As he neared the crosswalk, the approaching vehicle moved over into one of two left-turn lanes. Now he could see the DPS markings. "I was surprised to see the DPS officer continue through this intersection without making sure it was clear."

Taxi driver Billy Jones later remembered the "newer-model green car" passing him just before the light, "going at least 70 or 80 mph. As I stopped at the light, a police car with its red lights on passed me on the left."

Officer Valdez's 1997 Ford Crown Victoria cruiser weighed 4200 pounds, according to police estimates. The cruiser had push bars in front, a structure of black steel used to move disabled vehicles off the road. The bars rammed into the driver's door of Evan Shelley's white Nova. The door "pushed up over the frame of the vehicle." The roof buckled. All the front, rear, and left side glass was smashed.

The cruiser came to rest beyond the intersection, angled across the oncoming lanes. Officer Valdez lowered his window and crawled out the opening. Both front airbags had deployed. He appeared to be uninjured. He was taken to Mesa police headquarters, where he requested an attorney. After a time he was read his Miranda rights and, on advice of counsel, refused to answer questions.

At the scene, another officer noted that the cruiser's switch for the red-and-blue emergency flashers was in the "#1 position." That activated overhead "wigwag" lighting visible only from the rear.

At the hospital, blood and urine "evidence" was collected from Shelley. It was negative for alcohol, positive for marijuana.

The East Valley Tribune, two days later, said the case boiled down to "whether Shelley or the DPS vehicle entered the intersection illegally."

In this case, there was a witness that Mesa's police department could hardly argue against. The intersection of Country Club and University is one of 12 in the city watched by red-light cameras. A set of four photos told a detailed story. It showed the DPS cruiser entering the intersection in one of two left-turn lanes. It showed the light bar dark from the front, lighted from behind. It showed an entering speed of 62 mph. It showed entry between 15.0 and 25.1 seconds after the light turned red.

When Officer Valdez reached University, witnesses say the stolen green Lumina was about 3/8ths of a mile ahead. Valdez had not aborted the pursuit as he had been ordered to do.

Officer Valdez pleaded guilty to one count of reckless manslaughter, a class two felony, and was sentenced to five months in jail and four years of supervised probation.

Four juveniles fled the green Lumina in the next town south and were apprehended almost immediately. The driver was charged with felony flight; another male, in the back seat, was held on an outstanding warrant. Two females were released.

There are no winners here. The police must chase. Any other policy tells offenders there's a free pass to criminality—just run for it. Red-light cameras will never help this problem. In this case, they managed only to protect the reputation of a dead man. That's not much. But it's not nothing, either.